Man Page Writinghttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/
Life/Times of Man Page Writeren-usCopyright 2011Fri, 29 Apr 2011 13:16:16 +0000Apache Roller BLOGS401ORA6 (20130904125427)https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/moving_to_oracle_siteMoving to Oracle siteTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/moving_to_oracle_site
Fri, 29 Apr 2011 13:16:16 +0000PersonalThis thread will be moving to blogs.oracle.com.https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/another_acquisition_loose_end_closingAnother Acquisition Loose End: Closing Out Wrapped ContractsTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/another_acquisition_loose_end_closing
Wed, 1 Jul 2009 07:52:58 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
Of the thousands of loose ends that we will encounter in the Sun-Oracle combination,
one that is of great interest to me--regardless of whether
I survive--is how we wind down the
Sun 401K plan. Got to thinking about this when I noticed that <a href="http://www.dwight.com/stablevalue/stablevaluefundmanagement.shtml">Dwight
Asset Management Company</a>, the custodian of our
stable value fund, began publishing monthly
"Notes to Investors", after not having published such notes
for a year.
</p>
<p>
It's pretty obvious what's on the minds of the folks at Dwight. Such
notes to investors always contain standard text on risk. For a fixed-income
vehicle like a stable value fund, the risk factors are inflation and credit
risk (that a bond or wrap issuer fails). These Dwight always mentions.
However, in recent months, they've highlighted a couple of additional
risks:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
Plan sponsor event risk. To quote: "Plan sponsor actions that could
present this risk include bankruptcy filings, <i>plan or fund
terminations</i> (emphasis mine) and certain layoffs or early
retirement programs, each of which may be paid at market value,
which could be less than the book value depending on the
performance of the Fund's wrapped assets."
</li>
<li>
Cash flow risk. "...the possibility that the earnings rate on the
Stable Value Fund may be impacted by the investment decisions of
other plan participants." IOW, if everyone goes for the gate at
once, not everyone is going to get out will all they came in with.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
These make eminent sense to me, based on what Dwight is doing,
which is really quite remarkable: in this multi-year, near-zero-interest-rate
environment for short-term instruments, they offer a <i>liquid</i>
(to what degree, we may test) fund that pays about five times
the interest of the best, most cheaply run money market funds.
(Dwight has consistently paid a shade more than two percent, while
the biggest
<a href="https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0030&FundIntExt=INT">
Vanguard</a> and
<a
href="https://www.fidelity.com/?bar">Fidelity</a>
MM funds pay around .2-.5 percent.)
Dwight does this with lower expenses than even Vanguard pays on
its Prime Money Market fund, which is something of a benchmark
for low costs.
</p>
<p>
Of course, Dwight is in the position of
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/">George Bailey</a>: the
hundreds of millions they list in their fund is not <i>really</i> all there
at the same time. If Sun/Oracle were to say: we're shutting down
the Sun 401K in 90 days (for example), that would not be sufficient
time for Dwight (or anyone) to unwind their various <a href="http://www.lmstrategies.com/types~2.html">wrapped contracts</a>
without taking a big hit to the net asset value of the fund.
</p>
<p>
Sun, or Oracle/Sun, probably wants to terminate the Sun 401K as
soon as possible. Why would Oracle want to pay for two 401K plans?
Dwight and the holders of assets in the Dwight fund, each for
their own selfish reasons, want the plan to
continue to exist as long as they need to unwind
(or recoup) in an orderly fashion.
Beyond these obvious things lies the vast ocean of my ignorance.
Does Sun, or Oracle/Sun, have any legal obligation to Sun 401K plan
participants to, as far as possible, sustain the price of their stable value
fund?
Would the p.r. hit of a precipitous termination of the Sun 401K plan
be a sufficient incentive to Oracle to go slow?
Do our (Sun) executives have sufficient funds with Dwight that they might be
inspired to some innovative solution?
</p>
<p>
Incidentally, I don't see an abrupt shutdown being a big problem with any
of the other funds in Sun's 401K. With the possible exception of one
Goldman fund, they are all giant, big-name funds.
For all the funds but the stable-value, a large, one-time requirement to raise cash would probably not force them to make moves that would deviate hugely from their fund strategies.
</p>
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</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/paradox_of_whateverparadox of whateverTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/paradox_of_whatever
Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:39:14 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
I was going to title this
"<a href="http://ingrimayne.com/econ/Keynes/Paradox.html">paradox of thrift</a>"
,
alluding to Keynes' description of how a set of actions undertaken by inviduals
can,
in aggregate, redound to negative consequences. But I decided
not to participate in "Keynes abuse", wherein partly educated persons
like me dress their opinions in the garment of the Keynesian lexicon.
</p>
<p>
But I do want to write about a paradox. I'll call it a casual form of
the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma">prisoner's dilemma
</a>. The paradox is that when each firm in
my industry (<a href="http://www.dilbert.com/">information technology</a>) is
laying off hundreds or thousands
of employees--a seemingly good move for individual companies--the
cumulative effect of these layoffs is bad for the economy and, ultimately,
the individual firms.
</p>
<p>
I've written
<a href="http://blogs.sun.com/manwriter/entry/time_has_arrived_for_flex">before</a>
of a possible means of reducing or avoiding layoffs.
I'm encouraged to read about proposals for pay cuts for State of California employees as one step in addressing our truly dire budget situation here in California. (Disclosure: my wife is a public school teacher and thus
would be [or should be] subject to such cuts.)
But I'm beginning to
<a href="http://tinyurl.com/67jq7q">bore</a> myself when I write of pay cuts.
</p>
<p>
What can companies do to benefit the greater economy while not harming
themselves? Are individual firms doomed to lock up in a fight to the
death, then,
<a href="http://tinyurl.com/39t2bl">together</a>, fall into the abyss?
Wrong questions, you might say. A corporation's
<a href="http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Friedman.html">only obligation</a>
is to
do the right thing for its own financial health. The weak firms will
disappear, while the strong, after sustaining some wounds, survive and
prosper.
</p>
<p>
I can imagine a scenario wherein, per the rule above, Google, Microsoft, Intel,
and other cash-rich, wide-moat or monopolistic companies survive and
return to growth, while
a number of now-familiar names disappear.
I can also imagine a lot of paths between here and that point of eventual
equilibrium and most of them look pretty ugly.
</p>
<p>
My father, still lucid at 88, talks about the
<a href="http://history1900s.about.com/library/photos/blygd46.htm">Great
Depression</a>.
(I leap in here to reassure that I don't predict an event of that magnitude.)
His family suffered greatly, to the point where obtaining food was an issue.
What my father recalls, in addition to the various privations, was
the gnawing uncertainty. Chaos had been unleashed and there was no assurance
that the republic would survive.
</p>
<p>
I think we're stumbling rapidly into a situation where chaos will be unleashed
once more. Yes, we start at a "higher" (i.e., richer) point and, yes, we have
unemployment insurance, Social Security, and food stamps. But to emerge from
this we're going to have to take some unprecedented steps. Or, I should say,
<i>additional</i> unprecedented steps. (As a US taxpayer, I may soon be a holder
of
<a href="http://www.oldsmobile.com/olds/home_nf/index.html">GM</a> preferred
stock.) As distasteful as it will be to
<a href="http://www.aei.org/">many</a>, cooperation
among private firms--whether self-initiated, government-induced, or
government-mandated--will have to be among these steps.
</p>
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https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/missed_the_leading_indicatormissed the leading indicatorTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/missed_the_leading_indicator
Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:21:32 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
About once a month, a former Sun director (we'll call him "Frenchy") and I
distribute food to poor families in East Palo Alto and east Menlo Park. (The
former is an incorporated city, the latter an area of the city of Menlo Park.)
Frenchy does this every week.
</p>
<p>
Starting in the summer, Frenchy and I noted an increase in demand for food--more
food sought, for more families. At the same time, on what I thought was a
parallel track, the financial news was going bad but was far from today's
dark and depressing numbers. Demand for food has continued to
increase to the present. I now realize that, even before BLS and Commerce
Dept. confirmed our worst fears, these recipient families were
"living the stats", as it were.
</p>
<p>
I surmise that, at the first whiff of a downturn, restaurants and other
service businesses pare their staffs. Also, the temporary work--we wealthy
residents of the Peninsula hiring mostly Mexican immigrants to do our
physical labor--dries up.
</p>
<p>
While Sun will embark on the just-announced layoffs within weeks, I note
that our janitorial staff (services provided by a contractor) had their
layoffs announced weeks ago. First hint of bad news and--boom--the
hourly-rate people are gone.
</p>
<p>
There's at least the appearance of a gap between
me--white, wealthy, and middle-aged--and those
young families with the beautiful smiling kids to whom I dispense
food. I watch in grim fascination as my financial assets drain away; the weight of
bad news threatens
to pierce my bubble. In East Palo Alto, with Dad out looking
for work and Mom putting
on a brave face, the little ones--giggling, babbling in Spanish--bounce
around the feet of Frenchy and me as we unload their food.
</p>
</body>
</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/san_josesan joseTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/san_jose
Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:02:26 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
The other day, I was complaining to a friend of mine, a resident of
<a href="http://www.sanjoseca.gov/about.html">San Jose</a>,
about the high cost of remodeling where my wife and I live in
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babbitt_(novel)">Palo Alto</a>.
My friend suggested that my wife and I sell our house and buy in a less
expensive neighborhood in San Jose.
In what sounded even to me as snobbish, I said, in effect, no way.
Too much congestion, too hot, too big. San Jose, not for me.
</p>
<p>
The alacrity of my response reminded me that my feelings about San Jose run deep.
I spent my adolescence in that city. My parents moved there when I
was about 11, when San Jose was still mostly an ag town. I left for
college and then the Army at 18.
I never again lived in San Jose for any extended period of time.
However, my parents remained, and I've been in and around frequently.
My youngest sibling, my brother Bill
was born and raised in San Jose--the only one of the eight Gibson
children who was born outside of Chicago.
</p>
<p>
For the young edition of me, the growth of San Jose was
urban development gone insane. It was the extirpation of everything that
made San Jose--the capital of the
<a href="http://www.santaclararesearch.net/">Valley of Heart's Delight</a>--distinctive.
It became (and is now) a city where the car is king.
There are cities that were more clumsily developed--Houston and Miami come
to mind. Going further afield...visit the suburbs of Moscow if you
want to see an egregious example of bad planning.
</p>
<p>
In truth, the San Jose of 2008, is undoubtedly, still, one of the
most desirable places in the country (and, therefore, the world)
to live. Yet I have a hard time getting over the ruination of
what was there. In the overheated climate of the early 70's (my
early 20's), I viewed it as a desecration.
</p>
<p>
I understand, at least to a dilettante's level, the economics of
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_and_best_use">land use</a>.
I know, too, that without the economic prosperity brought
about by the development of Santa Clara Valley, I (and tens of thousands
of others) would not have enjoyed the standard of living I have.
But the development of San Jose could have gone along different
lines than it did. We knew, in 1970, that the reign of the automobile
would not be forever, that oil would become increasingly scarce, that dirty air would
damage people's health.
</p>
<p>
The short-run thinking that guided the development of San Jose is no different from what
one sees more often than not, and not just in the U.S. Again, though,
San Jose had so much and is now so thoroughly ordinary.
</p>
</body>
</html>https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/time_has_arrived_for_flextime has arrived for flex wagesTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/time_has_arrived_for_flex
Thu, 9 Oct 2008 07:06:14 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
<a href="http://blogs.sun.com/manwriter/entry/why_flex_wage_generous_severance">
Elsewhere</a>, I've tried to make the case for flex wages.
In good times, it's a harder argument to make (though I would make it,
because times change). In bad times--or the about-to-be bad times
<a href="http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/">economists</a>
assert we're going to have--the case for flex wages, or, more to the
point, pay cuts
instead of layoffs, becomes more persuasive.
</p>
<p>
To summarize what I've written
<a href="http://blogs.sun.com/manwriter/entry/wage_flexibility_and_job_security"
>elsewhere</a>: a pay cut of even 50% is preferable to a pink slip, or:
fifty percent of a salary is better than zero percent.
</p>
<p>
I've heard the argument that were Sun (or any firm) to cut salaries, it
would lose workers to competitors. Please tell me: who is hiring these
days? I
<a href="http://blogs.sun.com/manwriter/entry/wage_flexibility_and_job_security"
>acknowledge</a> that stars will always be able to move.
However, most people, however fully competent, are not stars.
For those of us rooted in the firmament, pay cuts make sense.
</p>
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</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/ay_caramba_treasury_stiffs_smallAy Caramba! Treasury stiffs small saversTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/ay_caramba_treasury_stiffs_small
Thu, 1 May 2008 09:12:36 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
I confess to doing a double take when I
<a href="http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/ibonds/res_ibonds_
iratesandterms.htm">read</a> the fixed rate for May-Oct 08 period for I-Bonds:
</p>
<p>
Nada. I.e., zero percent.
</p>
<p>
That means the small saver will get nothing above the rate of inflation
(<a href="http://www.bls.gov/cpi/">CPI-U</a>) for the life of bonds purchased in
May-Oct. That, I think, is
truly extraordinary.
</p>
<p>
I hope anyone with money to add to the fixed income portion of their
portfolio took
<a href="http://blogs.sun.com/manwriter/entry/arbitrage_opportunity_for_the_litt
le">advantage</a> of the Nov 07-Apr 08 fixed rate.
</p>
<p>
At this point, an investor seeking inflation protection would do better
to wait for the 10- or 20-year TIPS
<a href="http://www.savingsbonds.gov/indiv/products/prod_auctions_glance.htm">
auctions</a>, which occur in mid-year.
It used to be that you had to buy such securities in increments of $1000,
but I believe the Treasury has relaxed that restriction, for TIPS and for
all other T-notes and bonds.
</p>
</body>
</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/that_is_unacceptable_absolutelythat is unacceptable, absolutelyTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/that_is_unacceptable_absolutely
Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:45:39 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
Today's bothersome usages are "absolutely" and "unacceptable",
which are sometimes used together, producing, for me, an
exponentially bad effect.
</p>
"Unacceptable" is usually used in the phrase, "That is unacceptable",
often uttered in a stern tone of voice. As far as I can tell, the
phrase has two meanings:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
"I find that unacceptable" or "That is unacceptable to me".
</li>
<li>
"Everyone knows that this is unacceptable" or, the long-winded
variation,
"As one who is in conformity with and has extensive
knowledge of the manners and morals of our society, I declare
that this is, as something in conflict with those manners and
morals, unacceptable."
</li>
</ul>
If the person's meaning is the first one, they should just say
that. If it's the second, they should be called on the validity
of their credentials as the arbiter of ethics. A more honest
usage might be, "I believe most people would find this unacceptable."
<p>
A similarly misused word is "appropriate". This word has a sexual/moral
dimension that is more pronounced than "acceptable".
E.g., if you walk into your boss's office with a schedule that has
you taking ten weeks to write a device driver from scratch--ten weeks
when he wants eight--he might respond, "That is unacceptable."
If you walk in with your schedule, wearing skin-tight and/or revealing
clothing (male or female; this is an equal opportunity blog), the boss
might respond (nodding at your attire), "That is inappropriate."
</p>
<p>
"And I still find your schedule unacceptable."
</p>
<p>
I'm actually OK with the use of "inappropriate" to mean "what most people
would say is not appropriate for
this setting", even if it would be more honest to say, "Your clothing
is suggestive (or too sloppy or casual or are you color blind?)"
I guess my resistance is worn down.
</p>
<p>
Now "absolutely"--I can't escape my years at a Jesuit High
School. I mean I had drummed into me that for absolutes you had things like God,
death, the point at which all molecular activity ceases. Not,
I'll absolutely get the hot peppers with my burrito.
</p>
</body>
</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/arbitrage_opportunity_for_the_littlearbitrage opportunity for the little guyTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/arbitrage_opportunity_for_the_little
Thu, 6 Mar 2008 08:25:31 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
As I
<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/rates/index.html">write</a>,
the real interest rate on a 5-yr.
<a href="http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_tips_glance.htm">
TIPS</a> is <i>minus</i> .14%.
This is almost unfathomable.
This means that the market's expectation of inflation is such that
a buyer is required to pay (embedded in the price of the bond), rather than receive, a real interest rate.
The return on the nominal 5-yr T-Note is 2.51%, so the market's
inflation expectation over the life of these instruments is 2.65%--lower
than I'd predict.
Another datum: the 10-yr. TIPS is currently paying 1.04% real.
</p>
<p>
So here's my little-guy arbitrage play:
<a href="http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/ibonds/res_ibonds.
htm">I-Bonds</a>
are paying 1.2% real, through the end of April.
I like to think of I-Bonds as 5-yr. TIPS, with an option to go out longer.
That's because if you sell an I-Bond before you've held it for five years,
you pay a 6-mo. interest penalty. (You <i>can</i> sell the bond after you've
held it for a year.)
</p>
The Treasury recently announced a $5000/yr.
<a href="http://www.treasurydirect.gov/news/pressroom/pressroom_reducedpurchasel
imit.htm">limit</a> on the purchase of Saving Bonds (I-Bonds and the
not-too-rewarding EE Bonds). I believe this announcement and the
divergence between the market return on 5- and 10-yr TIPS and the
I-Bond fixed return is no coincidence.
</p>
<p>
The limit is actually $5000 each, for bonds purchased in electronic
and paper form.
</p>
<p>
You might compare I-Bonds with a traditional IRA, with fewer encumbrances.
Interest accrues on a tax-deferred basis. (You pay tax only when you cash
in.) And, of course, as an instrument of the US Government, interest is
state-tax-free, of great interest (pun intended) to residents of relatively
high tax states, such as Calif. and NY.
</p>
</body>
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https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/ma_and_pa_kettle_visitMa and Pa Kettle visit the GoogleplexTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/ma_and_pa_kettle_visit
Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:06:35 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
Last Friday night, a friend of my son's who's a Google employee invited
<a href="http://www.dvdclassicscorner.net/kettle.htm">
my wife and me</a> to visit Google's Mt. View campus.
As we drove there along Garcia Ave., I noted with a twinge the number
of former Sun and Silicon Graphics buildings that are
now occupied by the big G.
</p>
<p>
Our first impression: Everyone is the age of our children. Get me out
of here! Just kidding, of course. My kids are welcome home anytime.
But it was fun. There is an exuberance about youth that is impossible
to fake. I don't care how excited you are about your job, at some level,
the everyday aspect of a job can be a grind. Well, when you're young
even that grind is new and it's kinda cool.
</p>
<p>
Our host, who, I must digress to say, is the foremost under-30 Argentine
economist working in the Bay Area, shared a meal with us in one of the
dining rooms. The food was terrific. My wife and I had a beer (free,
of course), sat in
a rather scary massage chair, and used the rest room. I'd ordinarily
not report on such matters, but this, at least for my wife, was special.
It was the first time she'd ever encountered a heated toilet seat. The
device was also equipped with water jets that would cleanse a lady's
"front and back seats".
</p>
<p>
Enough anatomy.
</p>
<p>
Sprinkled throughout each building are kitchen areas with high tech
espresso machines and cabinets and refrigerators stocked with all
manner of goodies. It was the sort of stuff you see in a fancy
grocery store and consider buying but would never allow yourself to be
that extravagant.
</p>
<p>
All free.
</p>
<p>
Some other impressions: Google is big, borderline huge. I think they're
going to have to give up the notion of being the Peter Pan of companies and
decide what kind of big company they want to be.
GE? They've been very profitable for a very long time. Johnson & Johnson?
They too are successful and have the reputation of treating their employees
well. 3M? Another possibility. Pre-Carly HP? A worthy model. Microsoft?
Please. IBM? Could happen.
</p>
<p>
I gotta wonder, too, about all the perquisites--notably the food and drink.
It's gotta cost a bundle to serve all that wonderful, fresh, often organic
food, three meals a day, every day. It's tough to go backwards. I wonder
whether the people running Google are setting the bar too high.
</p>
<p>
What do you do when you're on top? Sun never achieved the heights achieved
by Google, but at the crest of the Internet boom we rode high for a period
of 2-3 years. What should we have done then to keep the party going or,
at least, prevent a precipitous drop-off? We <i>were</i> extravagant in our
spending. That's one thing I could identify even then. But that's not
a completely satisfying answer. I'll leave that topic for a future note.
</p>
<p>
For now, Google looks like a fun place to work, but I expect some growing
pains in the near future. That's a cultural, not a financial, prediction.
</p>
</body>
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https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/evolution_of_the_motor_carevolution of the motor car or how I lost a hobbyTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/evolution_of_the_motor_car
Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:21:34 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
Occasionally it strikes me how much less I do on my cars than I did when
I was a
<a href="http://www.thingsasian.com/stories-photos/22708">young man</a>.
Then and now I change bulbs, wiper blades, and, generally, reattach most
things that fall off.
But, then, the list would look something like:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
Change engine oil and filter.
</li>
<li>
Change transmission oil (manual).
</li>
<li>
Change oil in air filter (you remember VW engines, don't you?).
</li>
<li>
Replace spark plugs and wires.
</li>
<li>
Adjust valves.
</li>
<li>
Set dwell (spark duration).
</li>
<li>
Advance or retard timing (onset of spark).
</li>
<li>
Adjust idle.
</li>
<li>
Change brake pads.
</li>
<li>
Rotate tires.
</li>
<li>
Drain and flush radiator.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
There were numerous one-time tasks:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
Replaced brake rotors in front.
</li>
<li>
Replaced starter motor.
</li>
<li>
Installed new valve cover gasket.
</li>
<li>
Helped my son install a new flywheel pulley on a 72 El Camino with a 283
with 4B carburetor. (You could watch the gas gauge move to the left when
you stomped on that thing.)
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Now, I change the engine oil and filter, rotate the tires, and that's about it.
The interesting thing though is how many of the tasks of my youth have gone
the way of, I don't know, the Rambler. With computer controls on air and
fuel intake, spark timing and dwell, and emissions, there's no more of the
tune-up type tasks.
The spark plugs on my 2002 Honda Civic get changed at 105,000 miles. (I'm not
there yet.)
There may be a few cars that use mechanical valve lifters,
which could get out of adjustment, but I think 90% of cars today use hydraulic
(or solenoid-type) lifters.
</p>
<p>
Mechanically, brakes are pretty similar to what was present in, say, the late 70s.
The lining materials and fluid are better today. And there's the ABS stuff, but
I don't think that gets in the way of a brake job. Then, it was mainly the
foreign cars that had front disks; now a lot of cars have four-wheel disks.
</p>
<p>
I'm sure, on more than one occasion, I flushed a gallon or more of used
antifreeze-water mixture down the drain,
the thought of which makes me cringe. What can one say about the stupidities of one's
youth?
</p>
</body>
</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/much_progress_and_much_toyour buddy the stockbrokerTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/much_progress_and_much_to
Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:56:55 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
It's almost
<a href="http://www.buyandhold.com/bh/en/retirement/retirement_perspectives/article_0040.html">too easy</a>
to pick on the financial services industry.
So let me start by praising some positive trends:
<ul>
<li>
The price of buying and selling stocks has declined dramatically. I don't have
precise numbers, but, in my own experience, I've paid a couple of hundred dollars
on a six thousand dollar transaction (early 80s dollars). This was before
Charles Schwab came along. (Though we no longer have an account with Chuck,
I give them
big-time props for pioneering the discount brokerage business.)
Now what do you pay? Ten bucks a transaction? And it'll probably decline
from there.
</li>
<li>
I think even the
<a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/brokerage/whats-wrong-with-full-service-brokers.aspx">
full-service guys</a>
are (generally) less apt to push only
individual stocks and will at least mention index funds.
All the notions about
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_market_hypothesis">efficient markets</a>
and
<a href="http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/assetallocation.htm">asset allocation</a>
have become the conventional wisdom, and the big brokerage houses have adapted.
Acknowledging this change, individual practitioners have changed
their titles to "financial advisor",
or something like that.
Of course, they never were and still are not titled correctly.
That would be "salesperson".
</li>
<li>
There is a trend toward the use of
<a href="http://www.napfa.org/">fee-only</a>
(rather than commission-based) financial advisors, whose use is
appropriate for people with significant tax, trust, and estate planning needs. (IOW, those
prized
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_net_worth_individual">high net worth
individuals</a>.)
</li>
<li>
Load funds are dying out. I have no idea if this is true. If it's not,
it
<a href="http://mutualfunds.about.com/cs/noload/fr/notoloads.htm">should</a> be.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Still, there are things like
<a href="http://www.smartmoney.com/retirement/investing/index.cfm?story=wrongannuities">
variable annuities</a>, which might have an
appropriate place in someone's portfolio. I just have a hard time conjuring up
who that person might be.
Also on the list of financial devices that tend toward the criminal is
<a href="http://www.smartmoney.com/insurance/life/index.cfm?story=lifeterm">
whole life insurance</a>.
</p>
<p>
Even here, though, there is progress. I hear more and more about
<a href="http://www.immediateannuities.com/">immediate annuities</a>
(a legitimate and important instrument) and
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_life_insurance">term life</a> (ditto).
</p>
<p>
But the continuing, widespread use full-service brokers (under any title) is a puzzle
to me. I would not consider this an abuse, because people clearly want the service.
But I don't know why people don't read one of John Bogle's
<a href="http://books.google.com/books?as_auth=John+C+Bogle&ots=6IfFgDpJW-&sa=X&oi=print&ct=ti
tle&cad=author-navigational&hl=en">many books</a>
or follow David Swenson's
<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6203264">template</a>
and be done with it.
</p>
<p>
Even with technical, highly numerate people, I observe this reliance on full-service
brokers. I understand that people are busy and are just as happy to turn things
over to a man or woman who is probably pleasant and might even be knowledgeable.
OTOH, such service has significant
<a href="http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/2006/10/costs_matter_if.html">costs</a>.
Also, it's a realm where you <i>can</i>, if you want, maintain a bit of control
over your own life, countering the trend where we are increasingly dependent
on institutions (government, large corporate employers, utilities, agribusiness, etc.)
beyond our control.
</p>
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https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/very_excited_to_express_myvery excited to express my excitementTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/very_excited_to_express_my
Wed, 6 Feb 2008 15:00:02 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
Though the usage is fading, it still remains almost mandatory that
someone talking about a new pertubation in their corporate or
civic life is "excited", or
better, "really excited".
<blockquote>
<p>
"Madam Superintendent and Distinguished board members, I'm
<i>really excited</i> to be here as chairman of the City of Akron's Green
Means Go committee."
</p>
<p>
"Thanks, Chuck. I'm <i>really excited</i> about the this new Trade Away HP
program for our OEMs."
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Now if
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Barker">Bob Barker</a>,
dressed in the raiment of the
<a href="http://www.icon-art.info/hires.php?lng=en&type=1&id=979">
Archangel Gabriel</a>,
were to burst into my office and offer me a free trip to meet
<a href="http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=parallel-universes-level-2003-05">
myself</a>--on many levels, I'd be excited. I might say
something like, "Bob, I'm really
<a href="http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://artfiles.art.com/images/-
/Steve-Bloom/Baby-Orangutan-Print-C10096614.jpeg&imgrefurl=http://www.art.com/as
p/sp-asp/_/pd--10096614/Baby_Orangutan.htm&h=450&w=336&sz=23&hl=en&start=1&tbnid
=LfIbRh08G1wx1M:&tbnh=127&tbnw=95&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dorangutan%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3D
en%26sa%3DG">excited</a> that you've burst
into my office today."
Short of that, we're talking "pleased" or "happy" or even
"honored". Not excited.
</p>
</body>
</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/how_much_of_our_economyhow much of our economy relies on information asymmetry?Terry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/how_much_of_our_economy
Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:21:13 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
To what extent does our economy benefit from (at least, statistically)
more financially sophisticated, perhaps more
highly educated persons taking advantage of the less sophisticated,
less well-educated?
Let's make a list of industries/economic activities where this dynamic
is at work:
<ul>
<li>
anything sold on TV infomercials
</li>
<li>
(related to the preceding) exercise machines (with special mention for
any device that includes the word "ab")
</li>
<li>
many financial services (a huge segment that deserves its own
<a href="http://blogs.sun.com/manwriter/entry/much_progress_and_much_to">note</a>)
</li>
<li>
exotic mortgages (special subset of preceding)
</li>
<li>
contract-based cell phones
</li>
<li>
paycheck loans
</li>
<li>
tax services that offer "immediate refunds"
</li>
<li>
diet books, diet programs, anything that has "diet" in its name
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Is there more of this stuff going on now than in previous periods of our
history? It might be easier to conduct such a business in age of instant
communication than it was before radio, TV, and the internet became
common.
</p>
<p>
Maybe it's not fair to include the "diet" category, because
the overeating/dieting seesaw does not discriminate
by education, income, or some nebulous trait such as sophistication.
But my larger point is that we, in the US, and probably in the
other wealthy nations, generate a lot of money from situations where there is
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry">asymmetric information</a>.
</p>
<p>
A number of the items above would require further qualification.
E.g., cell phones are an enhancement to the lives of many, but how many
people are paying more than they need to (or can afford) for such service?
OTOH, some segments are pretty close to being categorical stinkers: I can't
make the case for a low-income person paying to have their taxes done
when there are
<a href="http://www.tax-aid.org/">services</a> out there that will do it for free.
</p>
</body>
</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/age_not_invariable_predictor_ofage not invariable predictor of maturityTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/age_not_invariable_predictor_of
Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:36:05 +0000Personal<body>
<html>
<p>
At the end of his career, veteran hockey enforcer
<a href="">Marty McSorley</a> took an
ill-advised swing with his stick and struck fellow enforcer (and far less
illustrious player) Donald Brashear in the head. If you look at the
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imkXQ093o1c&feature=related">video</a>,
it appears that McSorley <i>might</i> have been aiming at
Brashear's shoulder, as McSorley claimed, but it was a pretty
stupid act, however one looks at it. Brashear recovered and
resumed playing. Fairly or not, that one impulsive act pretty much ended McSorley's
career.
</p>
<p>
I think of McSorley when I, no longer young, do dumb things--do things
that should be beneath my maturity. It makes me think of
the question: Which
is the greater contributor to maturity,
age (accumulated experience) or proximity to death?
More and more, I think it's the latter. For one thing, simply having
maintained a metabolism for X years does not bequeath one anything.
I might extend this principle to claims of having performed
a certain job for
a number of years, as if that lends authority to a person. It very
well might, but it very much depends on the individual.
</p>
<p>
That age is not an invariable predictor of maturity is consistent
with my experience of those young people who seem mature
beyond their years--the "old souls".
</p>
<p>
Hundreds of millions of our fellow travelers grow up in societies
in which death is an ever-present shadow. In wealthy nations,
we can kind of tuck the subject away in the desk drawer.
While some of us (I among them) postpone cozying up to our common destination
for a pretty long time, reality inevitably intrudes. Pretty soon, you
lose parents, and start losing contemporaries, maybe develop chronic
health problems.
The evidence achieves a weight of non-deniability.
</p>
<p>
It's at this point where courage and integrity and all those qualities
you were able to name and sort of able to describe become like: "Oh.
<i>That's</i> what courage is."
I stand in utmost admiration of those persons, of any age, who
can come to terms with our common fate with
equanimity and maybe even a positive attitude.
</p>
</html>
</body>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/i_love_my_child_evenI love my child at least as much as my porscheTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/i_love_my_child_even
Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:40:17 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
A co-worker buddy is involved in his condo homeowner's association and
periodically has to deal with complaints about teenagers who live
in the complex. When he approaches the parents about a problem,
he often finds that their first reaction, even before he finishes a
sentence, is: "My kid didn't do it," or, if the evidence is incontrovertible,
"My kid should not be punished, for these reasons..."
</p>
<p>
My friend asked me, "When your kids got in trouble [my three sons are
now 27, 25, and 21], did you automatically take their side?".
I would say, as I said to him, not just "No", but "Hell, no", and
not because my boys were particularly saintly (they weren't).
I had and have no problem being objective about my children.
And I'm not bragging. This is about as praiseworthy as my
penchant for not screaming curses at old ladies.
</p>
<p>
My wife, who teaches high school, observes the same unquestioning
advocacy of children on the part of their parents.
This advocacy has bequeathed to these kids a distinct sense of
entitlement.
Teachers at that school talk about the "B+
syndrome". Give a student a B and you'll get away with it. Give
a B+ and prepare to do battle. This, at a school where one student
in four is from a family in which one parent is an attorney. (Here,
"lawyering up" may mean no more than speed-dialing Mommy
and/or Daddy.)
</p>
<p>
Each year, my wife publishes guidelines for getting specific
grades. Only the
getting-an-A part is of real interest. For the college-bound,
that's the only grade that matters. For the rest, their parents
are probably not involved in their lives to the same degree (or
in the same way) as their fast-track brothers and sisters.
On several occasions, my wife and
I have had to refine these guidelines, based on "cases" my
wife has had
to present, before parents and administrators, to make a grade stick.
Sometimes it's changing an "a" to a "the". Sometimes it's adding
a dependent clause, to make things even more precise or to lend
emphasis.
But language is inherently ambiguous and you give a smart person
enough time (they certainly have the motivation), she or he will
find a loose thread.
</p>
<p>
There is such a thing as
<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/">unreasonable authority</a>
(isn't that what
the
<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2097365/">60's</a> were about?). And there are
condo association managers
and schoolteachers of bad faith and intentions. But, I'd submit that such
people are 1) a distinct minority and 2) identified very easily.
It's a parent's duty to help her/his child avoid such people or,
if avoidance is impossible, help the child deal with them.
But when dealing with a reasonable authority, a parent does a
child no favors by not allowing him/her to face the consequences
of their behavior.
</p>
</body>
</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/so_the_market_for_thisSo...the market for this is sort of inelasticTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/so_the_market_for_this
Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:21:29 +0000Personalmannerismsverbal<html>
<body>
What is the meaning of "So...", when prepended to a person's opening
statement? Just listen in a meeting:
</p>
<p>
<i>Meeting leader</i>: Well, we've gotten some pushback from the field on this. Stew
assures me that he can win them over. Response from ISVs has been good. Our tech
guy in Manila tells me their government is almost finished with their trials.
Jonathan?
</p>
<p>
<i>Jonathan</i>: So...several things to address. On the Phillipine government...
</p>
<p>
It's usually smart people who use this. It makes them sound a little smarter.
It's meaning, as far as I can tell, is something like, "Give my prodigious mental
powers a moment to gather themselves..." It's not necessarily as vain as that,
but close.
</p>
<p>
The other usage I notice is "sort of". Educated people use this in the way that
uneducated people use "um" or "like". On a basic level, it provides a pause and
can improve the rhythm of a sentence. In terms of meaning, well, it varies.
Often, it's something like, "The statement that follows is a useful approximation.
I don't have the multiple, double-blind studies at hand to substantiate the
statement, but it is accurate enough for present purposes."
</p>
<p>
You can hear numerous examples of these verbal mannerisms in
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XhvG_fD0HA">this</a>
video of Paul Krugman.
</p>
</body>
</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/the_device_i_have_andThe device I have and the device I needTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/the_device_i_have_and
Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:44:38 +0000Personal<body>
<html>
<p>
Each time I power up our Windows XP/Dell tower system (cost:
about $1200) at home, I'm
reminded of my tendency toward numbness of the brain. What I want to do: access the
internet for email or to pay a bill. What I need to do to achieve
that: Fire up this
<a href="http://www.steamlocomotive.info/">steam locomotive</a> and
wait till the steam reaches
a certain pressure before I can give it throttle. As long as the system is
up, I'm in peril of various malware and viruses, in acknowledgment of
which I've got to spend considerable time in preventive measures.
I've got some nice graphics card and a ton of disk space and
RAM and, of course,
<a href="http://support.microsoft.com/ph/1173">XP</a>.
The whole shebang will be obsolete in three years, which period would've
been shorter but for the clunkiness of and slow surrender to
<a href="http://badvista.fsf.org/">Vista</a>.
</p>
<p>
What I should've bought:
<a href="http://www.apple.com/macmini/">Mac Mini</a>. About half the cost (about $650
with employee discount), so creeping obsolescence is less painful.
It has everything I need and less of what I don't. In contrast
to the Dell's periodic hard-disk
<a href="http://www.caverntours.com/MoCavRt.htm">moaning</a>, the Mini is...
<a href="http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2114">silent</a>.
It's about
about one-twentieth the size of the
<a href="http://www.battleship.org/">Dell box</a>, virus-type
threats (while existing) are less, and <i>it's a Mac</i>. In
the competition between delight on one side and cessation of
pain on the other,
that's the rough equivalent of saying: <i>it's not Windows!</i>
</p>
<p>
What I really need:
The ability to connect to internet with an inexpensive device
that has the bare minimum of local storage, with a decent
graphics display (what I have now is fine), that allows me to get
out of the virus-prevention, driver-download business. For
financial transactions (e.g., doing my taxes), I'd need secure
storage and, for all files, simple (preferably automatic) backup.
Of course,
for this we'd need a much-improved internet infrastructure, probably
beyond what our current phone networks (and maybe cable networks)
are capable of.
</p>
<p>
Postscript: My remark about "slow surrender" to Vista was incorrect. In
Microsoft's earning announcement yesterday, they indicated that Vista adoption
was proceeding according to plan. Mothers, raise your children to be
<a href="http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f2600/2613toc_htm.htm">monopolists</a>.
</p>
</body>
</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/a_skeptic_is_impressedA skeptic is impressedTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/a_skeptic_is_impressed
Thu, 24 Jan 2008 08:45:13 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
The other day we had snow in the
<a href="http://www.scmwa.com/">Santa Cruz Mountains</a> (a fairly rare
occurrence), where a friend of mine lives. I was watching the news
and heard that <a href="http://www.daytripping.com/hiway9/hiway9.html">Highway 9</a>, a principal avenue to those mountains,
had closed. I stepped over to our computer and sent an email to
my friend, asking about the snow. Within five minutes, he'd
responded with a picture taken on his
<a href="http://www.apple.com/iphone/">iPhone</a> from outside his house,
showing a beautiful winter scene of house and trees with a light
blanket of snow. He was fine and, as was evident
from the photo, the snow was nothing more than picturesque.
</p>
<p>
I am stubbornly resistant to "personal tech", but vignettes like
this give me pause. Some of this stuff is truly remarkable.
</p>
<p>
Thinking about the role of technology in our lives is much like
discussing the present age in historical terms: we're too much in the middle
of things to have any perspective on long-term effects and on
which way we're headed.
Still, as creatures who love a good story, we try to make sense of our lives.
</p>
<p>
I still pitch the
<a href="http://www.gallawa.com/microtech/history.html">microwave oven</a>
as the most overlooked star in the modern
technology firmament, that and
<a href="http://auto.howstuffworks.com/anti-lock-brake.htm">ABS brakes</a>.
But I have to admit, the
internet, with all its attendant applications, is right up there.
For the contemporary American of a certain socioeconomic status, it
has become an integral, and nearly
<a href="http://www.howstuffworks.com/cell-phone.htm">indispensable</a>, part of life.
</p>
<p>
Given the utility-like characteristic of the internet, it makes a
lot of sense that companies, including Sun, are seeking to provide
a utility-like infrastructure for 'net. Further, it makes sense
that
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing">cloud computing</a>
should supersede locally-based resources.
</p>
</body>
</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/decline_of_pro_sportsdecline of pro sportsTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/decline_of_pro_sports
Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:36:46 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
For years I'd thought that I'd live to see the decline and, perhaps, a near
total eclipse of
pro sports in the US. My thinking was that the owners and players would price
themselves to a point beyond the reach of their customers. Concomitant with
this, there'd be "excitement overload", wherein the volume and frequency of
sporting events would exceed fans' capacity to absorb them.
</p>
<p>
While large segments of the population (at least in the US) have been
priced out of attending pro sports events, and I still see pro sports
declining, the industry has
surprised me with its tenacity.
Pro sports have become part of the fabric of the US economy, as part of
our entertainment industry.
</p>
<p>
I guess it's that old devil, greed, that is doing in pro sports, causing
the industry to lose its indispensable magic. That magic was the vicarious
pleasure of watching people in the prime of their physical lives playing
children's games in the same spirit (or so we allowed ourselves to think)
as we played those games ourselves. Now, try as we might to keep the veil
of "love of the game" in place, it's torn away at every turn.
</p>
<p>
By the way, I'm a lifelong sports fan, so I have no predisposition to wish for
the extinction of pro sports.
And when I speak of "magic", I hope I am something more than an old
guy indulging himself in
nostalgia. While I'd assert, there was more genuine passion in the
games in the period before, say, the early 80's, I'd also acknowledge
that the athletes in my "good old days" were indentured servants, were
not morally superior to today's athletes, and that, most importantly,
there are a million better things to do with your time than spectating.
The last point was as true then as now.
</p>
<p>
Now, when you talk about individual players in a major sport, the size
and duration of his contract is as much a part of the conversation as
batting average, points per game, or save percentage. Every major sports
web site has a "business of sports" section. The athletes themselves,
at least the stars, have become corporations unto themselves.
</p>
<p>
Our obsession with celebrities spoils things, too. Who knew that Mickey
Mantle was a drunk? Who needed to know?
</p>
<p>
I noted with interest that my own children, who all played high school
sports, were not the sports fanatics
I was at their age. Of the three of them, only one of them is a big fan
now and he, only of baseball.
</p>
<p>
A given sport can't make it pitching only to the dedicated fan. I infer
this from the presence at every pro game of various distractions--overly
loud p.a. announcer, cheerleaders, jumbotron, deafening music. It's an
admission that the game itself is not enough.
</p>
<p>
Btw, under the rubric "pro sports", I'd have to include college football
and basketball (mens, Div. 1). While the athletes are not paid (usually),
there is such a quantity of money sloshing around (for schools, coaches,
and various hangers-on), that the lucre plays a major role in how the sports
are conducted.
</p>
<p>
Pro football deserves a special mention here because, with their gigantic
TV revenue, they've gotten around
the outpricing-the-live-audience problem.
Still, at some point, you can't completely do away with the roar of the crowd.
The NFL has some dud franchises (including two right here in the Bay Area).
It can afford only a distinct minority of these, beyond which the entire
sport--industry segment--is dragged down.
</p>
<p>
Where I thought before that pro sports would be a leading indicator in any
economic retrenchment, my
guess now is that they'll decline in tandem with the economy as a whole.
</p>
</body>
</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/test_entrybond manager volunteers views on politicsTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/test_entry
Wed, 9 Jan 2008 12:40:04 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
I'm cool--I would never actually say that, but I'll write it--with my supposition
that most people in the money management business are politically conservative
and, likely, members of the Republican Party. (Question: If the Democratic Party
is now the "Democrat Party" do the Republicans now make up the "Republic Party"?)
Though I might not agree with their political philosophy, I don't see a problem
with their running my money.
</p>
<p>
This is my build-up to a quote from the semi-annual report from Western Asset
Funds, an outfit that runs a bond fund in our 401K. Just got the report in
the mail yesterday; it covers the 2007 through Sept. 30, so it's a bit
dated. (Incidentally, Sun offers a very good
menu of low-cost 401K options, with the Western fund being among the good
alternatives.) In these periodic reports, managers (or their ghost writers)
get to expound on macroeconomic themes like they were back in college.
I enjoy reading them because I like to get a feel for the way a guy (or gal)
who's managing my money thinks and because I occasionally learn a thing or two.
Here's the quote:
</p>
<blockquote>
Looking ahead, there are two new things to worry about: higher taxes and a weaker dollar.
Democrats are pushing hard for higher taxes, at a time when the U.S. has the highest
corporate tax rate in the developed world and many countries are discovering that
lower and flatter taxes can attract new business investment. This is a genuine
threat to future growth, but higher taxes, if they happen, are still on the
distant horizon.
</blockquote>
<p>
Fine to worry about higher taxes, though higher taxes' negative consequence to bond
performance is not obvious to me. I infer that the writer believes that,
at this time in our economic history, higher taxes would be a brake on growth.
Generally, bonds do better in periods of slow growth, so I'm left unsure
as to the basis of the writer's worry, but, hey, he's worried. I worry a lot.
I'm OK with worrying.
</p>
<p>
It's really with the rest of the quote ("Democrats are pushing hard...")
that I have a gripe. The "official" Democratic proposal was published by Charles
Rangel, Democrat of New York and chairman of the House Ways and Means committee.
The proposal <i>does</i> increase taxes on families with incomes greater than $200,000,
to what the top rates were during the Clinton years. It keeps the estate tax,
with higher exclusions than were in effect in the Clinton years. It <i>lowers</i>
the top corporate tax rate from 35 to 30 percent. Further, Rangel wants to
take the corporate rate even lower and has discussed eliminating it altogether.
</p>
<p>
In fairness to the writer of the quote, the Rangel plan might not have been published
at the time of publication. However, if it were not, who are these Democrats that
are pushing and what are they pushing?
</p>
<p>
I love the phrase, "...many countries are discovering that lower and
flatter taxes can attract new business investment." Where are these countries
on whose soil, until recently, no economist had ever set foot?
Certainly no nation on the planet
Earth. Is the writer referring to low-wage, developing nations, using tax
breaks to compete with
their peers for big factories, much as states in the US do? Maybe he's thinking
about France, where Sarkozy wants to create a more business friendly environment.
I just can't tell.
</p>
<p>
I don't have a quarrel with an assertion like "lower taxes can attract
new business investment". It's the "countries are discovering" that comes out
of left field.
</p>
<p>
I'm also scratching my head over the "flatter" bit: lower,
sure, but why would a prospective investor care about the progressivity
of a country's tax rates? I understand that the marginal rate is the key
piece of data and, with a flat tax, the flat rate <i>is</i> the marginal rate.
But a country could have progressivity with an overall tax burden that is
lower than the tax burden in a country with a flat tax.
<p>
Finally, to the last sentence:
<blockquote>
This is a genuine
threat to future growth, but higher taxes, if they happen, are still on the
distant horizon.
</blockquote>
To this I'd say: given
current entitlement levels (especially Medicare) and current military commitments
(Iran and Afghanistan), there will be some combination of spending cuts <i>and</i>
tax increases over the next decade--or, well, the US goes into default.
</p>
<p>
The comments are signed,
"Western Asset Management
Company". No individual writer is identified.
</p>
As I said at the top, I have no problem with an enthusiastic partisan (Republican or Democrat) running my money. I wouldn't
want, though, that person's ideology determining his/her investment decisions.
</body>
</html>https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/child_of_the_sixties_meetschild of the sixties enters reagan/thatcher eraTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/child_of_the_sixties_meets
Tue, 8 Jan 2008 14:42:28 +0000Personal<html>
<body>
<p>
Being a child of the <a href="http://www.sfheart.com/sfsixties.html">
sixties</a>, I was, and am not, much into the concept of
a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartleby,_the_Scrivener">career</a>.
This is something of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop-Out">
cop-out</a> on my part. Having performed the same job (tech writing)
since August of 1982, I don't know that it's wholly truthful for me
to say I don't have a career, so I won't push the point.
</p>
<p>
While a goodly number of my contemporaries pursued jobs and careers upon
college graduation, an also large number did not. In fact, from my biased
perspective, it seemed that a majority of my co-workers, from the mid-70s
through the early 80s, had tried different jobs before settling on a
career-type job. This might have been an artifact of a pre-globalization, less competitive economy.
</p>
<p>
At some point, in the mid 80s, when I was at Xerox, I became conscious
of an increasing number of young people who 1) took vocation-oriented
college studies and 2) moved directly into career-type jobs upon
graduation. At first I was sort of bemused and maybe even a little
patronizing
toward these people (as if greater drug usage bequeathed one privileged
insights). Then, as careerism became the norm--as it is in spades
now--it dawned on me that these people were no less a product of their time
than I.
</p>
<p>
But back to my checkered non-career...
</p>
<p>
After an inglorious quarter at
<a href="http://www.scu.edu/">Univ. of Santa Clara</a> (where we had
mandatory ROTC, getting to march around with rifles [unloaded, thank God]
at 7 AM each Fri), I dropped out and
was, for a time, a pot-and-pan man at
<a href="http://www.oconnorhospital.org">O'Connor Hospital</a> in San Jose.
</p>
<p>
As you started your shift in the pot/pan area at O'Connor,
the wall of
greasy pots and pans loomed to a point two feet above your head. It was easy to get
overwhelmed.
And so I was, at the beginning; so slow that my bosses were seriously considering
canning me.
But, over a few days, I developed a system
that allowed me to stay ahead of the never-ceasing influx of dirty kitchen
implements. I ended up being a
<a href="http://wendyknits.net/knit/badass.htm">bad-ass</a> pot-and-pan man.
(I note that, as of the date of this entry, there are
<a href="http://www.oconnorhospital.org/careers/Pages/JobOpenings.aspx">openings</a>
in the O'Connor
kitchen. Can one ever relive the magic of one's
<a href="http://www.mozartproject.org/">early success</a>?)
</p>
<p>
Inspired by my hospital kitchen experience, I went on a long bike ride, alone. I rode
north to Grants Pass, Oregon, riding up the central valley, going over
<a href="http://www.nps.gov/lavo/">Mt. Lassen</a> and on to Oregon.
On my return to the Bay Area, I took the
coastal route. It was a nice ride, but I didn't like
<a href="http://www.lowergear.com/product-support/aboutsleeping.html">sleeping in the
woods</a> alone. Too many middle-of-the-night noises, so I didn't sleep
too well.
<p>
After the bike ride, I hoed weeds in an avocado orchard in
<a href="http://www.fallbrookca.org/">Fallbrook, CA</a>. Got a nice
tan, leathery hands, and was probably in the best shape of my life.
</p>
<p>
After that I dipped my toe in modern history.
</p>
<p>
It was spring 1968. The North Vietnamese were gearing up for the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tet_offensive">Tet Offensive</a>.
Having long concluded my studies at Santa Clara, my 2S deferment had
become 1A eligibility. After a flirtation with the local Army recruiter and
near-career as a weatherman (Meteorological Observation School,
<a href="http://www.dix.army.mil/">Fort Dix</a>,
NJ), I did a last-minute switch and volunteered for the draft, gambling
on avoiding Nam. I won (very narrowly) and spent a year and a half in
Germany, first in <a href="http://www.giessener-brauhaus.com/">Giessen</a>,
then in <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Hanau,+Germany&sa=X&oi=map&ct=title">
Hanau</a>.
</p>
<p>
On getting out of the Army, I worked and went to community colleges (Foothill
and Canada, here in the SF Bay Area). I got a job as a
<a href="http://www.vacareers.va.gov/index.cfm">nursing assistant</a>
in the psych admitting ward at the <a href="http://www.palo-alto.med.va.gov/">VA Hospital</a>
in Menlo Park.
</p>
<p>
After a couple of years, I matriculated to
<a href="http://www.csuchico.edu/">Chico State</a>, where I was
an <a href="http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2004/10/23/scripts/english.shtml">
English major</a> and a beneficiary of the <a href="http://www.gibill.va.gov/">GI Bill</a>.
Following graduation, I moved to <a href="http://www.seattle.gov/">Seattle</a>
(before it was groovy to do so) and worked at the <a href="http://www1.va.gov/pugetsound/page.cfm?pg=12">
VA Hospital</a> on Beacon Hill.
While in Seattle, the US Congress had the wisdom to extend the GI Bill benefits such
that my benefits, exhausted upon Chico graduation, now had two more years.
I don't know whether school is more fun than work, or vice-versa. I think it
tends to be that the activity that one is not doing at the moment seems more fun.
On that principle, I attended the <a href="http://www.washington.edu/">University of
Washington</a>, studying for a Master's in
<a href="http://depts.washington.edu/engl/cw/mfa.html">Creative Writing</a>.
</p>
<p>
That handful of human beings who have read my work (even my wife!) agree: I
am <a href="http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/">laughably bad</a> at creative writing.
I recall that the prof then in charge of the UW writing department was really
reluctant to let me in. Getting out was worse: it took my sister, who still lives
in Seattle, years of
<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/drugs/2004-12-15-drugs-usat_x.htm">lobbying</a>
(this after I'd left town) to persuade the department
to award the degree.
</p>
<p>
My first post-Masters job--and first job as a married man--was, I think, a classic:
mailman, or, more accurately and gender-sensitively,
<a href="http://www.nalc.org/">letter carrier</a>.
After two years of carrying mail in
<a href="http://www.westseattle.com/">West Seattle</a> and driving night collections
in <a href="http://www.ballardchamber.com/ballard.shtml">Ballard</a>, my wife and
I moved to <a href="http://www.ci.pg.ca.us/">Pacific Grove</a>, where I carried mail for
two more years.
After that it was the tech writing
<a href="http://blogs.sun.com/manwriter/entry/present_at_history">breakthrough</a> at Digital Research.
</p>
<p>
Interesting to look at the wages of my early-work-history jobs, in today's dollars.
As a nursing assistant in Menlo Park (this was before the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis">oil shocks</a> of the mid-70s),
I recall making something like $3.85/hour, on the order of $8,000/year. That
<a href="http://www.bls.gov/cpi/">translates</a> to about $41,500/year in today's dollars.
On the VA <a href="http://www.vacareers.va.gov/index.cfm">web site</a>, I find
a salary range for nursing assistants of $28,405-$41,313.
</p>
<p>
In my last year as a mailman, I was making money at the rate of about $22,500/year, including
overtime. In today's dollars, that's $49,005/year. At Digital Research,
<a href="http://www.cooper.com/management_team/">Alan Cooper</a>, the hiring manager, was
reluctant to splurge on a mailman. I took a cut to $20,000, or $43,560 in today's dollars.
I note <a href="http://www.nalc.org/depart/cau/paychart.html">here</a> that a letter carrier today
with the experience I had would make about $43,000/year.
</p>
<p>
Financially, and otherwise, tech writing has been good to me.
</p>
</body>
</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/evolution_of_software_engineering_techevolution of software engineering, tech writing jobsTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/evolution_of_software_engineering_tech
Thu, 20 Dec 2007 05:31:48 +0000PersonalengineeringsoftwaretechwritingWhen I started at <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/manwriter/entry/present_at_histo
ry">
Digital Research</a> in the early 80s,
most engineers had
hardware backgrounds. They were the guys (and it was an even more male-skewed
group than you'd find today) who, as kids, took apart their parents' TV sets.
They tended
to know whole systems (which,
of course, was easier to do in, say, 1983, than today), from CPU to low-level
OS, up to user interface.
Assembly language was more commonly used than it is today. Many programmers
felt they had to write their own compilers.
A couple of the best engineers were auto-didacts who
had little or no college.
</p>
<p>
A lot of software types in my early days were unconventional
people--musicians or other types of artists. This might still be true, but
I'm less conscious of it.
</p>
<p>
At some point, in the mid 80s, when I was at Xerox, I became conscious
of software engineering as a college degree and as a profession.
I began to meet engineers who
knew only programming languages (and not the hardware) and who had gone
into the profession because it looked like it had a great future, not
necessarily because they were enchanted by software. There were even
those engineers who weren't strong math students, who'd taken the bare
minimum of math to get their C.S. degrees.
</p>
<p>
Over time, software engineering has become further detached from the
nuts and bolts of the hardware (except, of course, for device driver
writers). Where 15 years ago, I might look askance at an engineer who
had no grasp of the hardware on which his program ran, nothing like that
thought would strike me today.
Today you could have a veritable Beethoven of software programming who'd
have no clearer idea of the science of the hardware than he would of his
car's catalytic converter.
</p>
<p>
Tech writing changed even more dramatically than engineering.
When I started in 1982, it was not widely thought of as a profession.
Expectations of technical knowledge were low. I might uncharitably
characterize it (then) as a form of welfare for people with non-marketable
majors (such as I, BA, English; MA, Creative Writing).
</p>
<p>
Much more is expected of tech writers today than was true
20 years ago (as one would hope). For one thing, it has been blessed by
academia:
Now you
can get a degree in tech writing from
<a href="http://english.cmu.edu/degrees/bs_tw/bs_tw.html">big-name</a> schools.
For another, competition for jobs is much, much tougher.
My brother (12 years younger than me)
looked for a tech writing job a couple of years ago. Employers' expectations
then was that you'd know some combination of a compliled language
(C, C++), a scripting language (Perl), and have mastered the mechanics of
web publication. In addition, you'd have a grasp of a complex system, such as
a programming environment or an operating system. All of this was on
top of writing competence.
</p>
<p>
Today, my relation to my job is analogous to my relation to my house (in the SF
Bay Area):
I'd probably neither be hired for the former, nor could
afford the latter.
</body>
</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/why_flex_wage_generous_severanceWhy flex-wage/generous-severance plan won't work (at this moment in history)Terry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/why_flex_wage_generous_severance
Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:18:42 +0000Personalflex-wageseveranceunemployment<html>
<body>
<p>
As <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/manwriter/entry/wage_flexibility_and_job_securi
ty">promised</a>,
I offer here my reasons why a flex-wage
plan, linked to a back-end severance package, would not work.
</p>
<p>
To make my proposal work, a firm would have to make raise
the ante--either increase
the duration or amount of the severance or, perhaps, increase the upside
bonus in good years--to the degree that the overall compensation package
would give that firm a competitive advantage in hiring. At this point,
the risk to the firm of overall package would be too high. E.g., a downturn
of sufficient gravity to compel large-scale layoffs might be catastrophic.
(Keep in mind
that a company that hires judiciously and is consistently profitable
would fare as well under my proposal as it would operating without
implementing my plan.)
</p>
<p>
Surprisingly to me, most workers I talk to don't cotton to my proposal.
Most of the objections cite an unwillingness to take a pay cut,
even with the "carrot" of a generous severance.
I'm inclined to speculate that some of these individuals overrate their
marketability. No matter. They believe they can do better under the
current system.
</p>
<p>
As an aside, I'd assert that if we moved into a recession, worker
sentiment toward a plan such as mine would change. On the employer
side, a firm's offering could be lower than what it would have to
be today and still be attractive.
</p>
<p>
While most workers seem to acquiesce in the current system,
the "current system" is not what it used to be. In fact, firms are
implementing flex wages, without the back-end severance. An article
"Winners and losers in salary game," on
<a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/?siteid=mktw">CBS Marketwatch</a> (which I'll not link to because the
link won't last) by Andrea Coombes notes that:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
Base salaries are expected to increase about 3.9% on average in 2008,
matching the average pay increase in 2007, according to a new Towers
Perrin survey of about 4,000 companies worldwide. Those results match
a number of other salary-expectation surveys.
</p>
<p>
It's not much when you consider inflation in October rose at a 3.5%
annual rate [now <a href="http://www.bls.gov/cpi/home.htm">4.3%</a>
since Nov. 2006]. But more employers now supplement salaries with one-time
bonuses and rewards, with more than 90% of employers offering such
"variable pay" this year, up from 80% in 2006, according to an annual
survey of about 1,000 large U.S. employers by Lincolnshire, Ill.-based
Hewitt Associates, the human-resources consulting firm.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
So the flex wages, as implemented, are merely a different way of
giving raises. High flyers will match or beat inflation; ordinary
performers will fall behind. The wisdom of such a system is fodder
for another article, but the key point here is that firms are not
"flexing" to a degree that would cushion the blow of a downturn
and thereby, possibly, preserve employment.
</p>
<p>
I think our current system of compensation and unemployment creates
waves that are too destablilizing, both for an individual and for the
economy as a whole. In large part, this is because US workers rely
to the extent they do on their employers for various insurances.
Single-payer health insurance would go a long way to shorten the length
and duration of the
down wave for an unemployed worker. In fact, this might be enough
for macroeconomic purposes.
</p>
<p>
In the absence of health insurance reform, a proposal such as mine,
with a generous severance on a declining scale, would dampen the downturn,
without (I hope) killing firms' incentive to hire. In the current economic
conditions, employees prefer a higher but less certain
income over a possibly lower but more certain income. In terms of power
and politics,
employers have pretty complete flexibility to hire and fire and have
no incentive to improve severance arrangements for the rank-and-file.
In such an environment, it's every man for himself.
</p>
<p>
</body>
</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/is_there_an_optimal_ageIs there an optimal age mix for an R&D organization?Terry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/is_there_an_optimal_age
Fri, 14 Dec 2007 09:05:20 +0000Personalagedemographicsmixr&d<html>
<body>
<p>
In most human communities--neighborhood, club, faculty, town--more
heterogeneity is better (as I always say). Heterogeneity across
gender, age, vocation/avocation, left brain/right brain--you name it.
"Better," as in stronger,
more viable, more civil, healthier. But is this true for a business?
I'd say for gender, yes, and maybe for brain-sidedness, but what about
young vs. old?
</p>
<p>
More and more, I think younger is better for a business, at least for
the type of business I have experience with (software development). And
I bet the "glamour" companies would reflect a youthful slant.
</p>
<p>
Incidentally, to disclose potential biases: I am 57; I have three sons in
their twenties.
</p>
<p>
In observing the work of engineers, from their early twenties into their
forties and fifties, I'd offer the following generalizations:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
Engineering is extremely demanding. This is great for those for whom
engineering is a "natural" fit. Some people are very smart and can
do the work proficiently but are not really born to it. When you're
young it's easier to do a job you're not in love with than when you're older.
</li>
<li>
Young (20-something) engineers can be very productive but are inefficient.
They pursue interesting tributaries as the slog up the main river.
</li>
<li>
Young engineers are more willing to glory in
60+ work weeks to get out that big, destiny-altering project.
They are also more able to survive such schedules.
</li>
<li>
A significant plurality, if not a majority, reach their peak production
years, at least in terms of volume and quality, in their thirties to
early forties.
</li>
<li>
At some point, usually in the late thirties to early forties, the demands
of engineering begin to take their toll. Besides the inevitable decline
in energy that comes with age, there are often family responsibilities,
or responsibilities outside of the realm of work. At this point, those
who are not born engineers begin to get restless. Many people decide
to go into management.
</li>
<li>
Engineers who remain in an individual contributor role into their forties
and fifties tend to be very disciplined in their approach to work. They
manage their time carefully and tend to be precise in everything they do.
No wasted motion.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
The preceding are, I emphasize, generalizations. I write of engineers, because
they are at the apex of the R&D hierarchy and because theirs is the "most"
indispensable (if "indispensable" can admit of qualification) of the R&D
organization. The same generalizations do not apply as well to other jobs
(such as mine, tech writer).
</p>
<p>
But here's a generalization that I'll apply across all job descriptions:
older people tend to have more chronic illnesses, miss more work, have
more responsibilities outside of work (e.g., aging parents).
</p>
<p>
There is another negative point associated with all old timers. Over time,
with annual raises, their pay reaches a point where it becomes more
likely they could be replaced by a younger person (or a person offshore)
who would do close to the same quality job, for markedly less.
</p>
<p>
A major caveat to my younger-is-better thesis is the value of the "old timer
who knows the linker". In every organization that supports a massively
complex ball of software such as an operating system, there are dark
tunnels of gnarly code down which no one really wants to go. It is
nice to have one or two experts who can just take care of things for you.
</p>
<p>
Another chink in the armor of youth: Most of the prima donna engineers I've
know have been under 30. I just think it's hard to sustain prima donna-hood
through life's inevitable slings and arrows.
</p>
<p>
One can't discuss youth vs. age in the workplace without mentioning
women's childbearing years. Most woman I know today
1) postpone having a baby till their late thirties
and 2) return to work within weeks of giving birth. On the first score,
such new mothers are almost out of my "young engineer" phase. On the second,
they have, not surprisingly, a new view of work and of life upon their
return to work. (One would
hope it would not be otherwise.)
</p>
<p>
I should add here that I'm writing strictly about business. I don't mean
to denigrate my or anyone's life experience. Experience can be a great
teacher--some might say the only teacher. There is such a thing as
"wisdom" and, generally, it is more often found in the old than the young.
</p>
<p>
So, with regard to business, with all the points in favor of youth and
against age, why do we have
age-discrimination laws? From an humanitarian point of view, I can come up with reasons. But in a society that prizes
efficiency above all, why do we prevent companies from saying "Out with
the old, in with the new"? Perhaps there is a legacy of
government-as-protector, leftover from the Great Society or the civil rights
era. But I wonder whether, given current trends, we'll see the erosion
of such laws.
</p>
</body>
</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/wage_flexibility_and_job_securitywage flexibility and job securityTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/wage_flexibility_and_job_security
Thu, 13 Dec 2007 09:12:19 +0000Personalflex-wageflexibilitylayoffswage<html>
<body>
<p>
For a long time, I've <a href="http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/771/532556.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.dkimages.com/discover/Home/Geography/Europe/France/Paris/Invalides-and-Eiffel-Tower/Museums-and-Galleries/Musee-Rodin/Rodins-The-Thinker/Rodins-The-Thinker-1.html&h=428&w=268&sz=22&hl=en&start=11&um=1&tbnid=Ma6ZrwX1HM-wKM:&tbnh=126&tbnw=79&prev=/images%3Fq%3Drodin%2Bthinker%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:unofficial%26hs%3DBry%26sa%3DX">
bounced</a> around the idea of a flex-wage plan, the goal
of which would be, from a worker's POV, for an employee to exchange certitude
about wage level for greater job security. Management would be able to
adjust wages up or down according to business results.
</p>
<p>
In my scheme, the degree of wage variability would be drastic. Let's take an
example employee, Sudhi, a fully competent (but not top 10%) engineer at a
Silicon Valley firm making a nice round $100,000/yr. Under my regime, Sudhi
would be certain of only half, $50,000, of his current salary. In a bad
year for the company, he might make as little as that $50,000. In an OK year,
he'd make his former salary of $100,000 and, in an exceptional year, he might
make as much as $150,000.
</p>
<p>
The correlation between the company's financial performance and Sudhi's salary
would be spelled out in detail. It would have to be some weighted combination
of profit and revenue. The formula would not include stock price.
</p>
<p>
An integral part of this scheme would be a severance package for laid-off
employees. It might work like this: The package would be done
on a sliding scale, declining
to zero after, say, five or six years. If Sudhi--an employee in good
standing--is laid off in the first year, he'd collect a one-time bonus of his full annual,
"median times" salary, $100,000, plus keep his insurance coverage (at
least health) for four years. For each year after the first, the package
would decline by 20%, so that if Sudhi were laid off after five years, he'd
get only the minimal sort of package that large firms often pay out today.
</p>
At first blush, this sounds dauntingly expensive for employers.
Wouldn't this discourage firms from hiring, given that they might be on
the hook for lavish severance packages?
It would, at least to start. However,
in my experience, very few employees are let go with but a year of service.
Put another way, you're doing a poor job of planning and hiring if you're
having to fire people whom you hired just a year or two ago.
And this large negative has to be considered with the carrot of wage
flexibility. My expectation is that if salaries could be reduced by as much
as half, a firm's financial performance would decline less than otherwise
in down times and, correspondingly, there would be less need for layoffs.
<p>
Why even consider such a scheme?
<p>
Most (i.e., more than half and I believe that three-quarters is not an
exaggeration) US workers rely on their employers for health insurance. A goodly
number probably rely on same for life and disability insurance. Having a job in the US means far more to one's material well-being than it does in other industrialized countries, which all have, to one degree or another, more extensive social welfare apparatuses than does the US. (I don't want to debate the pros/cons
of this here. I hope this statement is fairly uncontroversial.)
</p>
<p>
Given this relative importance in the US of holding a job, I'd expect workers would place a premium on secure jobs, so that a worker might take lower pay for greater job security. In fact, this <i>has been</i> the case, particularly
for the less well educated and for those whose skills are not suited
to the current
market. The latter category might range from a skilled worker who is done
in by automation to a Ph.D. in philosophy.
</p>
<p>
My assertion is that even workers with current skills, like Sudhi, will
become subject to the pervasive job insecurity experienced by his
less marketable fellows.
</p>
<p>
I have to interject that I've read some interesting, non-ax-grinding studies
that show that job insecurity is not as great as one would expect from reading the headlines. In fact, by some measures, private sector employment tenure is not dramatically different from the sixties and seventies. However, I think the key for a worker is the <i>promise</i> or the <i>likelihood</i>, as he or she perceives it, of a secure job tenure. It is this prospect of security--however we
deceive ourselves in looking back or perceiving the current market--that has diminished over time.
</p>
<p>
Under my proposal, at the cost of wage variability (maintaining some degree of predictability),
the worker would obtain a small measure
of job security. Rather than employment being an all (job with fixed income)
or nothing (fired, with zero income), it would, I'd hope, become an
experience of less extreme ups and downs.
</p>
<p>
Obviously, in my scheme, traditional habits of financial planning
would have to be modified.
Sudhi would be imprudent to take out a mortgage based on a $100K/yr income.
He'd do better to use a figure such as $75-80K/yr. This would probably
mean less house and, perhaps, a less fancy car, for Sudhi and his family--ultimately a lower material standard of living. Again, though, he'd be
getting something in return--a more secure, predictable employment.
</p>
<p>
How valuable would the wage flexibility I've described be to a company?
I can only speculate. For me, it represents an incentive that might
balance the expense of my proposed severance package.
There well may be other more effective measures. The goal here is to
strike a balance between the company's financial health and the
material well-being of its employees.
</p>
<p>
My proposal is based on my perception of the current labor market
and my prediction for that market. Labor arbitrage proceeds apace. Sudhi's
job is subject to displacement from lower-cost countries. Firms
are evolving toward a model wherein you have a relatively stable layer of
directors and above and a highly fungible set of rank-and-file workers.
This is good for the financial health of individual firms, but not so good for
the individual workers and their families and, ultimately, not good
for the economic health of the nation whose workers are being displaced.
</p>
<p>
I'd argue that by smoothing out the all-or-nothing nature of the current
employment contract, my proposal would benefit the economy on a macro
level. Particularly in IT firms, where salaries are relatively high,
the firing of hundreds or thousands of workers can have a pronounced
negative impact, a reverse
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplier_effect">multiplier effect</a>,
on the economy.
</p>
<p>
I mentioned above that Sudhi was fully competent, but not in the top 10%, as
evaluated by his company. I noted this because my expectation is that
workers in this group would be highly resistant to a flex-wage plan.
As things stand, these folks are far less vulnerable to routine layoffs, so
would not benefit from a scheme to increase job security. For this
group, management
would have to provide individual,
performance-related bonuses to induce
them to participate. Such bonuses would have to come up bring a
star worker's income up to "median times" rate ($100K/yr in my example above).
</p>
<p>
I see the "star worker" issue as a significant, but not deal-killing, objection
to my proposal.
<p>
I have to face facts: in today's political and economic conditions, a
proposal such as mine is a non-starter. I'll explore some reasons <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/manwriter/entry/why_flex_wage_generous_severance">
why</a>
in a future post.
</body>
</html>https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/czech_national_beverageCzech national beverageTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/czech_national_beverage
Mon, 10 Dec 2007 14:21:01 +0000Personalbudvarbudweiserczechpilsnerrepublicstaropramenurquell<html>
<body>
<p>
In my post on my visit to <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/manwriter/entry/visit_to_prague_vienna">Prague</a>, I was remiss in not
discussing the beverage on which that country runs. I generally loathe
the ESPN-like (while loathing in particular ESPN) ratings of anything that
is remotely subject to comparison, I'll fall back on that tired structure
for this note. In order of my preference, the mass-produced beers I drank
in Prague:
</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.pilsner-urquell.com/">Pilsner Urquell</a></u>. This is
the conventional choice, but, in my defense, Pilsner is the favorite of many
Prague residents, who might be expected to have a preference for my second
choice...
</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.staropramen.com/">Staropramen</a>. Brewed right there in Prague. Just a tad
less rich than Pilsner. Sorry, I don't have all the beer adjectives at hand.
I'm sort of reduced to thoughtful head-nodding, which I do when recalling
those half-litres we shared after hiking up and down
<a href="http://www.pragueexperience.com/places.asp?PlaceID=604">Petrin Hill</a>.
<p>
<a href="http://www.budvar.cz/">Budweiser Budvar</a>. One might call this the <i>real</i> Budweiser, though Anheuser-Busch would
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budweiser_trademark_dispute">disagree</a>.
In truth, I like this about as much as Staropramen. It's a bit more bitter, but beer, as my European acquaintances remind me, is supposed to be bitter.
</p>
<p>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoegaarden_Brewery">Hoegaarden Witbier
</a>. A Belgian, not a Czech beer, so it doesn't really belong here. Has
a delicious creaminess that derives from either good flavor and texture or
the suggestion of those qualities by the beer's milky appearance. I'm too
weak-minded to ascertain which is the genuine source of my observation.
</p>
<p>
As good as these four beers are, the best beers are those made at local
places such as <a href="http://www.gastroinfo.cz/pivoklub/">Pivovarsky Klub</a> or <a href="http://www.ufleku.cz/en/">U Fleku</a>.
In the States, we might refer to such a place as a "brew pub". The Czechs use
the term "pivoteka" (with diacritical mark over the "e"), which they translate
as "beer boutique". Brew pub might be the better term.
</p>
<p>
Over the last decade or more, we in the US have had available to us some
terrific micro-brews. These (at least many of them) stand up well to the
beers I drank in the CR. But if we compare Pilsner Urquell/Staropramen/Budweiser Budvar to our mass-produced beers (Bud, Miller, Coors), well, we're talking
different fluids. One can imagine a Czech visitor to the States ordering a
Bud at the bar, taking a good swig, and then, embarrassed, looking around and thinking, "Good God. I thought I'd
ordered a beer. I wonder what this <a href="http://www.ureasample.com/">stuff</a> is?"
</p>
</body>
</html>https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/on_selling_operating_systemsOn selling operating systemsTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/on_selling_operating_systems
Tue, 4 Dec 2007 13:29:52 +0000Personaloperatingsellingsystems<html>
<body>
<p>
When I <a href=http://blogs.sun.com/manwriter/entry/present_at_history>joined</a> Digital Research, maker of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M">CP/M</a> operating system, in August 1982, the scuttlebutt was that, in spite of the our then-current momentum, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Research">DRI</a> was, in the medium term, if not doomed, then facing a badly crimped future. To that point, the microcomputer industry was mainly a hobbyists' domain. IBM had acknowledged the industry's viability with its PC.
</p>
<p>
In spring or early summer of that very year, IBM had settled on MS-DOS as the OS for the PC, thereby consigning DRI to oblivion. The story of how this occurred is one of the more fecund legends of the computer industry's early days. The variation I have is, in few, that IBM really wanted to do business with DRI, but that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kildall">Gary Kildall</a> or his wife, Dorothy, or both, did not want to cede control of their "baby" to Big Blue--there are a dozen takes on who was to blame here--and that, as much in desperation as anything, IBM went to Microsoft and said, "Give us an OS." Microsoft didn't really have one ready, went to a garage-shop operation, Seattle Computing, and bought an OS (or at least critical pieces of same) from them. It was this OS that became PC-DOS and it was this blessing of Microsoft by IBM that laid the groundwork for the <a href="http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm">Microsoft monopoly</a>.
</p>
<p>
DRI was left to compete with Microsoft on a very unequal footing. Each PC was shipped with the Microsoft OS. If you wanted CP/M, you'd have to lay out additional cash (I recall it being something like $40-60, in 1983 dollars), uninstall MS-DOS, and install CP/M. One does not have to be a marketing genius to see that this was a losing proposition for DRI.
</p>
<p>
Incidentally, CP/M was a vastly superior product to PC-DOS (as one might readily imagine), but, no matter. It's hard to compete when one product is free and convenient and the other neither of those things.
</p>
<p>
These old stories come to mind when I think about Sun giving away and open-sourcing Solaris. It's a great move. It also might be the only move.
</body>
</html>
https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/visit_to_prague_viennaVisit to Prague and ViennaTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/visit_to_prague_vienna
Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:47:01 +0000Personalpragueprahavienna<html>
<body>
<p>
My wife and I recently returned from a trip to Prague, from which we made a weekend of it in Vienna. My random impressions:
</p>
<p>
Happily (wrong word for <a href="http://www.kafka.org/">this author</a>, but...), I'd just read <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_%28novel%29">"The Castle"</a> this year. On crossing the Vltava on the way to our pension, my wife said, "That must be the <a href="http://www.hrad.cz/en/prazsky_hrad/navsteva_hradu.shtml">castle</a>". It was early evening, but quite dark and on turning toward the north--bang--the image and its connection to the novel hit you. The specter of the castle, brightly lit at night, is at once intimidating and magisterial.
</p>
<p>
A word for the old women (and old men, but many of these have died) of Europe. I've now had the privilege of visiting London, Paris, Madrid, Moscow, Prague, Vienna...in each of these places, but especially in the cold of Moscow and, just recently, Prague, I've seen dozens of bundled-up old ladies, limping, sometimes at remarkable speed, through crowds in metro stations and other public areas. Braving chill wind, they manage to wend their way through indifferent throngs, not get crushed on some very fast escalators, and avoid getting wiped out by the distinctly non-pedestrian-friendly drivers. You see more about life in their faces than you can read in a book. They are heroic. For some reason, I just don't see as many such old folks in the States. I don't know why exactly.
</p>
<p>
Fast cars are cooler in Euroland than in the States. In a European city, the BMWs/Audis/Mercedes are dirty. They're going fast. Their drivers look like extras in a "Bourne" movie. They are often pulling illegal, unsafe maneuvers and show no remorse. Here in Calif., the status cars have a highly polished look. They might go fast for a burst, but quickly and sensibly deflate to a responsible speed. Their drivers look like aspiring white-collar criminals. I mean, if you're going to drive a <a href="http://www.mitsubishicars.com/MMNA/jsp/evo/08/index.do?loc=en-us">fantasy car</a>, why not live the <a href="http://www.mi6.co.uk/mi6.php3">fantasy</a>?
</p>
<p>
My wife and I were privileged to attend a lecture for one of our son's classes (he's doing a semester abroad in Prague). The class is taught by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaclav_Cilek">Vaclav Cilek</a>, one of the leading intellectuals in the Czech Republic. On the afternoon we attended, Prof. Cilek took us to a modern art museum in the Old Town district. The prof's knowledge of and passion for art was captivating. He is, incidentally, a professor of Geology, at <a href="http://www.cuni.cz/UKENG-1.html">Charles Univesity</a>, in Prague.
</p>
Interesting to note, in the <a href="http://old.hrad.cz/castle/svvit_uk.html">cathedral of St. Vitus</a>, the principal church on the Prague Castle grounds, a wooden relief depicting the city of Prague. As I recall, the relief is from the 13th century. Old Town and what became the Jewish Quarter are recognizably the same places they are today. To someone like me who has lived most of his life in Calif, this gives you pause: the San Jose my parents moved to in 1960 (and where they live today) no longer exists. There are a handful of buildings downtown still standing, but these no longer have a significant role in the life of the city. I think it's accurate to say that more than half of the development of the SF Bay Area (and I could probably extend this to the entire state) has occurred since WWII. The "place" where a Californian of my age (57) is from exists only in his mind.
</body>
</html>https://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/need_a_wordNeed a word or twoTerry Gibsonhttps://blogs.oracle.com/manwriter/entry/need_a_word
Fri, 9 Nov 2007 12:25:41 +0000PersonalbuzzwordeuphemismneologismI need a word to describe a term that is used in an attempt to grant the thing described more significance than it actually has. Examples include "utilize" instead of "use", "paradigm" instead of "example" or "structure", "proactive" instead of "active" or "aggressive" (or nothing). I want to say, "euphemism", but the definition is entirely in the direction of making a bad thing seem less bad:
<br>
<br>
1. the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague
expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.
2. the expression so substituted: “To pass away” is
a euphemism for “to die.”
<br>
<br>
<i>Modern Language Association (MLA):
"euphemism." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 09 Nov. 2007.</i> See definition <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/euphemism">here</a> .<br>
<br>
The words I cite (utilize, paradigm, etc.) are like a euphemism in that their user is, consciously or not, seeking to obfuscate or exaggerate. However, their direction is different: they want to make a modest or ordinary thing seem more significant than it is.
<br>
<br>
One could argue that "proactive" doesn't belong in my list of puff words--that it has a specific meaning, i.e., "acting in anticipation of some event". I guess I just hear it often in sentences in which I think it conveys no information. "Event X is going to occur. Our group is [proactively] preparing for it." So perhaps my complaint is more with the improper use of the word than with the word itself.
<br>
<br>
My next new word needed is an adjective to describe these conditions:
<br>
<br>
Your new car has been making a ticking noise each time you make a hard right turn. This occurs every time. You bring the car into the dealer and take a drive. Throughout a series of hard right turns, the noise does not present itself.
<br>
<br>
You have a persistent pain on the left side of your lower back. The pain is often, but not always, associated with exertion. Finally, you make an appointment and go visit your orthopedist. As the doctor takes you through a series of positions in the examination room, your back has never felt better.
<br>